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I thought I'd share, with anyone who might be interested (and because I can't babble on to Christine when I get home any more!!), the delights of teaching bottom set Year 7. There are 8 in my class, and I had them period 6 today. Amazing things they did:

-one blonde haired little lad shot his hand right up to ask my permission to take off his blazer;
-same boy literally put his whole head into his bag to find his homework planner in there;
-various of them had looks of sheer delight on their faces when they could remember that words ending in 'f' turn to 'ves' in the plural;

and the best moment of the lesson, when I felt genuinely happy to be a teacher, was when we had been doing this exercise where I gave them a word, and they had to write its plural version on their mini-whiteboard. I said right or wrong as they each raised their boards up for me to look at. By the time we'd got to the last couple of words, I told them what the singular word was and then said I'd turn around and would only turn back round when they'd checked amongst themselves that they were all right. You should have heard them: asking to see each other's and helping (not telling) when someone needed to change theirs. And then - bless 'em - telling me it was time to turn around and look.

In some ways, it's better than I'll ever get from top set Year 10. It really was one of those funny little moments.

Claire wrote:-same boy literally put his whole head into his bag to find his homework planner in there;

Genius that kid.. .genius!

Ah, the quiet things that no one ever knows.

Except those who read the forums. Those are some scarily polite kids: I can't remember asking to take my blazer off, and that was at a private school. Although we did have "officially hot" days where we didn't have to wear ties and blazers.

It's nice to remember why you love your job now and again.

Ah, the dichotomies of teaching. lesson-wise today was great if hectic. but at breaktime i have to go into school, having been teaching in a mobile/static classroom at the end of the yard. so any "playground action" is right in my path. and today i spent break time mostly dealing with a fight. and a proper, crunch of knuckles on jaw fight. anyways, a whistle is a teacher's best friend and it was alright in the end. but it was the very start of break so the duty team weren't out yet and it was just me and two year 9 lads going for each other. scary stuff. still....never a dull moment!

You should really stop stealing the Kid's dinner money and running a protection racket around your temporary classroom!

I had such a cool day today as we took ourselves and another high school out on an Enterprise activities day for 32 kids. What a selection of activities there was as well - abseiling, tree climbing, low rope course, archery and............ canoeing (high school style)! This was seriously the highlight of the day and the kids cheered like mental when we told them they were going in. A spare change of clothes was requested and thankfully they all brought it.

Of course, they were being very gentile about until me, a fellow teacher and the instructor started splashing them all which meant safe but at the same time crazy chaos occured.

32 kids walking out of the water completely drenched going ''SIR THAT WAS FAB!!!'' at the tops of their voices is something that will not be professionally beaten for ages.